bridell.com

Responsive wearable goggles by Alexei Shulgin and Aristarkh Chebyshev.

super-i presents itself as a pair of wearable goggles with a camera on front. There’s a little box containing some electronics that let you apply different filters to the image from the camera before feeding it back to the goggles, so that you can experience the world as seen through photoshop-style filters, or - and this is what makes it interesting - as ascii art!

This piece was featured on Slashdot as “realtime ASCII Goggles” and after that all over the place, but most of them failed to dig up what it’s called and who did it, presenting it as made by “some russian artists”. Shame!

The artists are Shulgin and Chebyshev, people. Find out more at www.critipop.com and easylife.org.

Shulgin is also one of the founders of runme.org, an archive of software art.

OpenFrameworks is a cross-platform, open-source C++ library for creative coding. It seems to be really catching on in the new media field, and a lot of artists and hackers are now using it. Watch the video I posted here, “Made with openFrameworks” for some examples of how it has and can be used, and some interviews with some people using it.

Basically what openFrameworks (”oF” for short) does is to allow you to easily use graphics, audio and video (generating as well as playing from files) and using stuff like video tracking (using OpenCV) and audio inputs. It is also easy to extend it further using other C++ libraries or using inputs from e.g. an Arduino board.

It is a C++ library which really means you’ll have to know (or learn!) C++ to use it. For me, openFrameworks is what finally made me force myself to learn C++.

openFrameworks is free, really free, and you can get it by signing up at openframeworks.cc. Actually, you don’t have to sign up either, you can just go straight to openframeworks.cc/about - but you really should sign up to the list.

You will need a C++ IDE. You can use Code::Blocks to build your applications, whether you’re on Windows, Mac or Linux. It is free, too! Or you can use XCode (free, on a Mac) or Visual C++ (on Windows, comes in a free version called “Express”) if you prefer.

openFrameworks vs Processing

• Processing is based on Java, openFrameworks is based on C++.
• Processing is friendlier and easier to use. OpenFrameworks applications are faster.
• Processing comes with its own IDE that you can code directly in, for openFrameworks you’ll need to install a separate C++ IDE. However, the Processing IDE is pretty crappy and you’re better off installing a proper Java IDE such as Eclipse if you want to do some real work.
• Processing builds to desktop applications and web applets, openFrameworks only to desktop applications.
• Both are cross-platform (Mac, Windows, Linux)
• Both are free.
• Both have an active community that share code and will help you on the forums.
• Both require coding skills.

Recommendations: if you are a total programming newbie and want to try some stuff or to learn to program, I recommend you to start with Processing. If you just want to do some graphic stuff that you want to put online, Processing will do just fine (or consider using Flash). If you already know C++, consider going for openFrameworks. If you want or need really fast applications, you should know that Processing is no way near as fast as openFrameworks.

The next OpenFrameworks Syjunta is scheduled for nov 26th 2008. This time the venue is Detroit on Roslagsgatan 21.

>> collectiveexperiments.com/ofsyjunta

>> detroitstockholm.com

Stockholm has been blessed with its own openFrameworks Knitting Circle. If you’re wondering why I’m talking about a knitting circle at at new media blog, it’s because this is not really a knitting circle. The craft here is hacking, not knitting. The material is code and electronics, not textiles, and the tool is primarily openFrameworks, the C-based framwork for new media artists and other… well, creative engineers.

The first oF Syjunta is at Doberman in Münchenbryggeriet, Oct 30 2008.

>> openFrameworks for the tool (and openframeworks.cc/download for the download)

>> oF Syjunta for the event

The good people of Dånk! are organizing the first Dorkbot Gothenburg event. It starts in about 30 minutes, so chances are that if you’re reading about it here it’s too late. All I know is that Japanese artist Kanta Horio will be there.

If you are not familiar with Dorkbot, I think the tagline “people doing strange things with electricity” really says it all. It’s great to see that it’s now running in Gothenburg too. Dorkbot STHLM has not been very busy lately, but fortunately we have Fringe… where, as it happens, Kanta Horio will also show up, as well as Alex Berman (aka Nim) from Dånk!

Out there:

• Dånk! [daonk.org]
• Dorkbot [dorkbot.org]
• Fringe [fringe.nu]
• Kanta Horio [media.t-kougei.ac.jp/~horio/]
• Alex Berman / Nim [timebend.net] [myspace.com/niminalism] [nimations.com]

Autonomous installation by Tim Horntrich and Jens Wunderling.

The piece self.detach - decomposing identities continuously scans whatever is being posted to Flickr. Images that are understood as being self-portraits (pictures tagged as “me”, “moi”, etc) will be extracted. They are then shredded into RGB pixels, which in turn are translated to physical colored grains that fall out of the machine.

Visually it first makes me think of Felix Gonzales-Torres’ famous Untitled (Portrait of Ross in LA) from 1991 - a huge pile of colored candy, weighing 175 lbs (80 kg) like Gonzales-Torres’s partner Ross before he started losing weight. I guess Horntrich and Wunderling are not aiming for quite that level of serious contemplation, but still, perhaps it is more than a jab at postmodern deconstructionism. At the project website the talk about the Buddhist practice of laying mandalas with colored sand, ephemeral paintings that are just brushed away into candy-colored piles of sand after they are done. With that in mind this piece does become a rather beautiful image for thinking about the futility of posting images of yourself at Flickr. “Look, this is me”. So?

Structured tagging: autonomous, installation, mixed reality

Further reading:

• selfdetach.net project website
• Tim Horntrich (udk.rgbdeluxe.de)
• Jens Wunderling (sport4minus.de)

Just so you know, there will be a new edition of Electrohype in Malmö, Sweden, this fall (2008). The call for entries is out on the electrohype website, electrohype.org

Interactive mixed reality game by Animaatiokone Industries.

Kick Ass Kung-Fu is a mixed reality fighting game. You perform your real martial-arts type moves in front of a camera. On screen you see both yourself and your virtual opponents. Fight!

I’m particularly impressed by the way they managed to mix physical motion with game-like physics on screen (super high jumps, super fast moves, etc). It’s also really liberating to do this sort of gaming without having to strap on any type of sensors, glasses or other gadgets, and at the same time allow you to use any physical object as a weapon. There are some videos on the site below showing all the nifty features.

Further reading:

• kickasskungfu.net

Autonomous installation by Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen.

Listening Post is a piece that listens to a number of online chat forums in real time. It extracts lines (those that contain the words “I am…”) and then displays these at the small displays, and reads the lines out using text-to-speech software.

While this sounds simple enough, it really is very nicely done. You should have a look at the page below and watch the videos to get the idea. This piece won the Ars Electronica Golden Nica for interactive art in 2004.

Further Reading:

• Listening Post (with videos) at Earstudio.com (Ben Rubin’s site)
• Mark Hansen homepage

Structured tagging: autonomous, installation

Fringe is a recurring gathering of people with an interest in stuff like new media art, physical computing, creative engineering, VJ stuff, etc., here in Stockholm.

At a typical Fringe gathering, there are a number of presentations, often followed by some sort of performance or DJ/VJ set, and usually a bar of some kind. We try to strike a balance between art and technology, and between “senior” artists/designers/researchers and new talents. At some point we also plan to start arranging workshops and other events.

One of the key ideas of Fringe is that it arranged by the community, for the community. This hints that while we have (so far) never stopped anybody from coming, we do want the people who come to be prepared to present something at some point. This is also why Fringe events are not announced in any other way than by direct e-mail to the people “on the list”. With one exception - since Fringe gatherings are usually hosted by some other organization, whoever is hosting an event is free to invite more people to that particular event.

To learn more about Fringe, check out the Fringe website: fringe.nu

The image above is one of the student pieces shown at Fringe #0003 at Konstfack, by Christer Chytraeus. This is only the inner mechanism of a odd machine that keeps a plant hooked up to the Internet. The dark box at the bottom is actually a beautiful accordion, modified to work as a sort of mechanical lung supplying the plant with fresh air.

For the record, this Fringe has no affiliation whatsoever with the Fringe festivals started in Edinburgh, but it is a direct continuation of the Fringe that ran in Gothenburg a few years ago. Fringe is an initiative by the Interactive Institute Art & Technology Program (where I work, when I’m not on parental leave, which I am at the moment). The main guy pulling the Fringe in Stockholm is Alberto Frigo.